Apple’s iWatch reportedly won’t launch until late next year

Apple’s had previously been rumored to be reading its “iWatch” smart watch for a late 2013 launch, however a new report suggests the device won’t launch until late 2014. In what reeked of a controlled leak earlier this year, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg all issued exclusive reports on the iWatch within days of each other. Details were scarce at the time, but Apple reportedly had a team of more than 100 people working on the smart watch, which it hoped to debut in late 2013. Now, however, KGI Securities analyst Ming-chi Kuo claims that Apple won’t launch the iWatch until late next year.

In a recent note to clients picked up by AppleInsider, the analyst claims that Apple’s iWatch will feature a display measuring between 1.5 and 2 inches diagonally, but it won’t be an OLED panel, as suggested in earlier reports. Kuo doesn’t expect the device to launch anytime soon though, and he said the name people have been using to describe the device — “iWatch” — is misleading.

“Investors shouldn’t be misled by the word ‘Watch.’ We think iWatch will not be positioned as a time-telling device, nor as a device that displays information from other Apple products,” Kuo wrote. “We are positive on the iWatch because its wearable design is helpful for offering more secure user identification and biometrics functionality.”

The analyst also believes the iWatch will feature a “secure user identification mechanism” and while he doesn’t specifically mention the fingerprint scanning technology gained in Apple’s AuthenTec acquisition, earlier speculation suggested the device may indeed include a fingerprint scanner.